A picture is worth a thousand words...

...or my new favorite thing to do, covering unsuspecting little lampshades in vintage fabric.

Working on...

a banner made of vintage fabric

Speakers, Sofa Cushions, and Emily Chalmers

 It's been awhile, so I will try as best I can to remember the speaker conversation. Pretty sure it went something like this.

"Honey, do you remember me talking about how since high school I've wanted to own a quality set of speakers? You know the kind I mean - blow the roof off your house speakers." Then he is getting a call and has to get off the phone.

Then I get the second phone call. "Johnny was at a yard sale when he saw these speakers. He actually drove off and left them there. I told him to go back as fast as he could and get them." 

I remember having a fairly lengthy convo about said speakers, but I'm thinking you get the picture.

It's to hard to type inflection so you'll have to trust me when I tell you I recognized right away that I was being entreated. I do remember the punchline he said, "Did I mention that they are kind of big?"

Now I've widened my shot to include the speakers. Not only are they kinda big, they are kinda black, and sitting in the living room, that prior to their arrival didn't have a speck of black in the decor, at least not on purpose. So now I have a serious problem. These speakers are a force to be reckoned with. My first thought was making a big slip cover to camouflage them. Then I remembered the photos of the Emily Chalmers loft and her use of black as an anchor, or point of interest, in an otherwise white space. Viola. Decoration born of desperation my friends.

Oh by the way, he redeemed himself when he came home after the living room re-do and said, 

"I like it, it's very Anthropologie."

Extraordinary Women...

Where Women Create by Jo Packam is truly a lovely book. It is full of inspiring work spaces of extraordinary women. While I do love the idea that extraordinary women pay attention to the details of their work spaces...making sure that they surround themselves with visually stimulating inspiration and unique organizational systems. I seem to have a little trouble with the implementation.

This is one of my unique organizational systems. I have the first part down. No problemo. Now I am waiting for the sequel. Where Women Create and Share the Secrets of Where To Hide the Laundry While You Make More Time To Sew. Until then I will have to settle for being merely an ordinary woman.

Sofa Refashion Deax

Before:

After:

I'm not sure how to best fix the gouge on the back. I am tempted to slap a fabric patch on; Anthropologie style.
If I had a couple of pillows I'd take a nap

Project sofa: fini

It would be a real stretch to call this process (upholstery) a labor of love, since I didn't love any part of it. Okay, I did love the fact that I finished. Unfortunately, it has a matching chair. Since it is still in the before mode I will save the chair for another post.

Project sofa

Before: